The mother of all intelligence failures (2)

“It is understandable that Musharraf would want a solution to this crisis that does not challenge any of Pakistan’s institutions. The real mystery here concerns the United States. First, forget the Pakistanis. How did the CIA miss Pakistan’s transferal of sensitive technical information to Iran and Libya, and how did it miss it for more than 10 years? Second, if the CIA did know about it, why didn’t anyone — Reagan, Bush, Clinton — do something about it? Third, if the transfers were discovered only recently — say, during the Libyan reversal — and the United States did not want Musharraf to fall as a result, did the United States simply suppress all public discussion to work covertly with Musharraf? Fourth, after the United States went public with it, why would it settle for, or be interested in, the political execution of Khan? The real issue is and always was the ISI. Why go public and let Pakistan off the hook so easily?”

But CIA director George Tenet revealed that American and British intelligence had been on this case in considerable depth.

Related Link:The Agonist has an interesting discussion thread on this; pointing out how mainstream TV in the US has totally ignored the AQK-Pak Nuke saga almost completely.